Chapter Six
The chill of the night-time air whirls through the open window of my bedchamber, and it lulls me into a reluctant wakefulness, my eyelids fluttering open with the cold.
For a terrified second, I think something other than the slow breeze from outside tingled my skin and drew me from sleep, but I calm at the sight of my curtains billowing with the force of the air pushing through the gap in the panes.
I pull the bedsheets up further, until they fully cover my neck, but soon feel the cold numbing my newly exposed toes.
I grunt and sit up, ready to pull the blanket down with my feet, when I see her.
Standing there at the foot of my bed, is the spectral image of Lillienne, blurred by the mesh drapes of the gold canopy.
Fear spills out of me like an overflowing fountain of dread, as I see my best friend standing mouth agape, her tongue black and hanging over her blue lips, a cold stare from her now lifeless eyes.
I throw my hand up to my mouth as if to catch a scream that does not even come close to escaping.
My best friend. My sister. Dead at my feet.
‘Eira.’
It’s her voice that ricochets off the bedchamber walls, but her mouth does not move at all, her jaw still hanging loose at an unnatural angle.
A tear escapes my eye as I try desperately to comprehend the sight before me.
I fight the urge to get closer to her by slamming my back into the wood of the headboard, clutching the pillows beside me as though they’d be effective in keeping me grounded.
I feel the jab of the sharp end of the feathers through the case.
‘Eira.’ I hear again. ‘Eira, it’s taking me. It’s sucking the life from my veins.’ I shake my head, trying desperately to block it out. But it persists.
‘I’m dying, Eira, can’t you see? It’s taking everything I have.’
The ghostly Lillienne gravitates towards me, face unchanging, her nightdress now visible, covered in rips and stains. Not blood, but something as black as ink. The atmosphere of the room hangs thick with damp and decay, and every breath leaves my lungs more vulnerable to rot.
She’s hovering over my feet now, and I pull my knees up to my chest in anticipation of her grabbing them in her outstretched hands, my feet safe at the base of my buttocks.
As she looms closer and closer I try to push my back further into the solid wood behind me, and my spine crunches at the force of the action, grinding with the headboard as I writhe at the proximity of the sickening sight of my decomposing best friend.
I close my eyes and plead for the ghost to disappear before I can feel its vaporous form on mine.
A deep rattling sound comes from above me now, and I don’t need to look up to know that it is coming from the throat of the thing that looks like Lillienne.
A long, drawn-out exhale that ripples through the hair on my head, a terrifying harmony to the desperate moan that tails the rattling and then—
Silence.
I hesitate before allowing myself to steal a look at the air above my bed.
Nothing there but the gentle presence of the glittering, painted clouds.
My body slumps with the relief, and despite the racing of my heart, I can’t help but blink with grogginess, unable to think about my encounter with the ghost, only sleep. But sleep does not come.
The doors to my bedchamber slam into the walls as they are thrown open, and I blink my eyes open to the light of day, my skin slicked with the muggy air of my room.
Lillienne, fully herself this time, runs in clutching her left hand.
My eyes dart to the window, and I find it latched shut and the curtains drawn tightly by their cuffs. There is no cold air seeping though, and no explanation for what woke me, if anything did at all.
Lillienne throws herself down onto the bottom of the bed, still holding her hand, her face stricken with panic.
‘Eira, my hand. It’s…’ She can’t finish for sobbing, her face saturated in tears, fair hair wetted to her forehead.
My heart almost stops beating fully as I catch sight of her contorted fingers.
The skin on her hand is milky-white and shrivelled up as if it has been submerged underwater for a dangerously long period of time, but the dead whiteness stops almost in a perfect line across her delicate wrist. It’s as if she’s becoming the apparition that had just visited my dreams but a minute ago. Her cries ring in my ear.
It's sucking the life from my veins
‘Move your fingers for me, take your time,’ I say softly, trying not to scare her further with any hint of the alarm screaming inside me.
She takes a ragged breath and looks to her hand through the tears.
Her fingers crackle with the jerked movements, the joints pop as she tries to bend them to the best of her ability.
‘They are so weak, Eira.’ Her chest jolts as her lungs gasp for more air amongst her crying. ‘My hand doesn’t feel like my own anymore, and the pain…’
It’s heartbreaking scene, and a few stray tears trickle down my own cheeks. I can’t bear to see her hurt and not know how to soothe the pain and calm her distress.
‘Shhh,’ I whisper. ‘Just take deep breaths. It will be okay.’ I hope she believes it, even if I can’t be sure of it myself.
‘We will call for the physician. He’s worked with my family for a lifetime.
He will be able to help or at least advise us of any remedies.
’ I stroke a tear-soaked strand of hair from her face.
‘No, no, no.’ She shakes her head. ‘You don’t understand, Eira. I can’t be fixed. No physician can help me.’
My brows furrow. ‘You’re right. I don’t understand. Why reject the help of a trained professional? Surely, you’d rather we try—’
‘I cannot perform any magics,’ she cries, now cradling her hand in her lap, tears splattering onto the pale skin. ‘I think I’m losing the power.’
And I think you’re being drained of it, I want to say.
With no evidence but a gurgling in my gut to back it up, it must be him – it has to be.
The power he wielded yesterday, was unpredictable and seemed to turn its back on the laws by which our magics were bound.
We can mould and manipulate the energy emitted by the Relic, twisting it into the power to move or retrieve objects, and use the energy to protect the vivacity of the earth. Reyhen thrives on it.
But the Umbrian king’s abilities are alien to me, and without knowing exactly how they work, we don’t stand a chance in combatting them.
‘Is everything alright in here?’ a quiet voice asks from the doorway.
There, standing hesitant in the hall, is the chambermaid, Morven.
A short, soft-bodied woman, with a face creased with the faint lines of time and eyes that hold an unrelenting kindness that I know means I can trust her with anything.
She waits for me to invite her into the room; a step I hate she feels is necessary. ‘Your Grace?’
‘Morven.’ I gesture her over. ‘Please, come in. I wonder if you could advise us on something.’
‘Of course, Your Grace.’
‘I’ve told you before, Eira will do fine. I’d like to think we could be more like friends here.’
She bobs her head, like she can’t decide between a curtsy and a nod, and enters the room, closing the doors behind her with a gentle push. As she edges closer to the bed, she takes one look at Lillienne in her distress, and all formalities go out the window anyway.
‘You poor thing, whatever’s the matter?’ She notices the crumpled hand on Lillienne’s lap.
Her eyes enlarge but the muscles in her face remain relaxed.
There is no shock in the way she brings a hand to Lillienne’s forehead, or in the way she flattens out her fingers, taking extra care when it earns her a wince.
‘Shh,’ she coos. ‘The fever hasn’t settled in yet. You have to breathe, poppet. All will be well, you must trust that all will be well.’ The fever? Her lack of panic and the mention of a fever tells me one thing and one thing only. She has seen this before.
‘What is it, Morven? Does she need a Physician?’ I ask.
She shakes her head.
‘No physician in Reyhen will give this poor girl the correct treatment. You would be sending her to her death.’
I flinch at the last word. If not one single Reyheni Physician is willing to help, then this has to be the doing of an Umbrian. The Umbrian. The prick. He wants to torment me? Fine. But to bring Lillienne into this is a step too fucking far.
‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ I get up from the bed, not knowing what to do with the ire coursing in my blood. ‘He’s the one doing this. It must be how he gets his power.’
I turn to Morven, but she doesn’t look up from Lillienne’s hand. ‘You knew that. You’ve seen what he does to people, you have witnessed this exact thing before.’
‘You have to trust me when I say this, Eira.’ Her tone is a desperate mix of caution and command.
‘Your friend has a long journey ahead of her, and I have seen what happens when the afflicted do not receive the correct help. I know someone that can help her.’ She lifts her head and her eyes plead with mine.
‘I can take her to them, but I will need your help, Eira. And your trust.’
‘No need for that.’ I fall backwards with a jolt at his voice. Searing pain erupts in my elbow as it smashes into the hard stone wall that breaks my fall. I grip the grooves in the stone, clambering to keep myself upright as I dare a glance in his direction.
There he is, leaning his shoulder on the large wooden armoire that sits against the wall parallel to my bed. Lips curved into that sardonic smirk that turns my throat dry, he lifts his hand up into that same slow-fingered wave he gave me when he first appeared at the ceremony.
Eliaz Daegon. The godsdamn King of Umbra and the newfound bane of my existence.
Back again for some more infuriating torture.
I can’t contain my rage at the sight of him, I lift my hand to the quill standing upright in the inkwell on my dresser, lifting it upwards in the air with a twist. It dips slightly as the energy of the Relic pulsates in the atmosphere and with one firm push, I send it darting straight towards his right eye.
But the point of the quill does not meet flesh, or tissue, or bone. It hits wood.
‘Remind me never to invite you on a hunting trip,’ he says, now sitting on the bed, stroking the hair from a terrified Lillienne’s face. ‘You’re a terrible shot.’
‘Get off me.’ Lillienne pushes his hand away, leaning into Morven, who rubs her arm in an attempt at further consolation but doesn’t utter a word.
‘How did you…’ I trail off, eyes darting between the armoire and the king.
‘One of my favourite tricks.’ He studies his fingernails.
I can’t tell if I’m looking at a real man, or just a trick of the light. His body appearing both spectral and solid, a figure of haze in the sunlight seeping in from the windows.
‘Come back for another look, have we?’ I ask, the power of the Relic beginning a slow crescendo inside me.
I didn’t even have to seek it out this time.
I try to coax it out without showing any evidence of my efforts on my face, which is easier said than done with my limited experience with this kind of power.
‘I never left.’ His eyes dance with spite. The nightmare, the pleading apparition of my best friend wheezing a dying breath mere seconds before the real thing burst into my bedchambers in a panic. It was all him. Of course it was.
‘What exactly are you achieving with those mind games of yours? If you want to drive me to madness, then you have your wish. Because I’m mad.’
I barely need to pull the power outwards – it pushes itself down my arms and out to my hands in one great flaming surge of power that erupts with a crack from my skin.
I do not risk throwing it at the king, for fears I cannot control where it catches – Lillienne and Morven are much too close to test it.
He laughs. Morven gets to her feet, the movement startling my attention from him. I reel the fire in a little as Morven now stands a few inches from me. She raises her hands in front of her, as though she is capable of quelling the flames herself. ‘Eira, please. I said you had to trust me.’
My forehead creases, and I squint my eyes at her.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say, searching her face for an answer. Then it clicks. I let go of the power, releasing flame into smoke, my arms falling by my side, overwhelmed with the realisation.
‘He’s the someone who can help?’ I shake my head and push away the idea. ‘No, no. Morven, you’ve got it wrong. This is his fault. He’s the one draining her of her power. I know it.’
Morven’s face remains soft and imploring. ‘No, Eira. You have to believe me, for Lillienne’s sake.’
‘I’m flattered you think I’m capable of such an intense skill, Princess, but despite popular belief I have all the power I need already at my fingertips.’
I look to the bed but he’s no longer there. Lillienne weeps at the tendrils of smoke lingering where he was perched by her. I try to push past Morven to get to her, but a thick muscled arm blocks my attempt. My blood hums.
‘I think it’s time your little friend and I set off,’ he breathes in my ear, the chill of it raising the hair on my neck and forcing me into a submissive shiver. I sway on my feet.
I’m unsure whether it’s fear or anger that makes me do it, but I clamp my hands onto his forearm and heave all the flame I can from that pit of heat and energy and send it all bursting from my skin to his.
To my surprise, he does burn.
With clenched teeth, I relish in the sound of his charring flesh as it sizzles with the full intensity of my power.
He screams in agony and tries to pry my fingers from his skin, but they only melt deeper into him as I keep my grip firm with the strength of sheer adrenaline. I continue to push flame from my hands until my own skin begins to sting with the heat of it.
‘Eira, stop!’ Lillienne shouts, but I am too focused. This man deserves every ounce of pain I inflict upon him, after everything his people have done to mine. Every bit of torture he has found enjoyment in since he stepped foot across the Divide. I want him to pay for all his people have cost me.
For my father. For my mother. Lillienne.
The Umbrian king seizes my face with his free hand, pushing my head back in attempt to force me to separate from him.
‘You fucking bi—’
Darkness hits in one violent blow to my head.